Justiça restaurativa: uma forma alternativa de se fazer política criminal

Abstract

This article is result of a Restorative Justice research, it presents characteristics, principles, participants and how it can be used as a choice to conventional methods to solve criminal conflicts. This new perspective of criminal policy faces the increase of crime, given the inefficiencies presented by traditional methods, such as prison, especially due to the absence of its resocializing role. This modality, which can be used as a complement or even as a substitute for traditional criminal sanctions, has been growing due to difficulties faced in traditional criminal policy where the penalty applied by the State to the offender has a merely punitive/retributive function. Restorative justice is a new look at the subject and proposes removal of exclusivity of the state power in the treatment of the offender with the execution of the sentence imposed by State-judge and giving the victim, offender and the community itself, the opportunity to decide together the most adequate solution to correct the error, restore relations damaged by the crime and, from there, promote true social peace. The article also presents the global interest of international organizations such as the UN in spreading Restorative Justice practices to resolve criminal conflict in an alternative way.